Re: Newbie needs help

Gui Djos wrote:
[...]
>  I should point out, mr. Koser, that your attitude does nothing but 
> discourage new programmers from learning Ruby. In that sense, as highly 
> as you may think of yourself, you act as a negative force in the 
> community. You pull it backwards, which, if my impressions on Ruby's 
> philosophy are correct, is, to say the least, "very crappy". 

I gave you help and encouragement to use the Ruby language better.  I 
don't know why you're responding this way.

> With all 
> your experience in this specific language, sir, you do not seem like a 
> "Happy Programmer", and I don't think mr. "Matz" would approve your 
> behavior towards newcomers to the creative world of Ruby.

Matz is active on this list, and I'm sure he has read my posts.  If he 
doesn't like them, I hope he'll tell me.

>  Just because 
> you're more experienced than others on something, it doesn't mean you 
> have the right to step on them.

It was not my intention to step on you.  It was rather my intention to 
encourage you to use the Ruby language in a more idiomatic style, and to 
give you some pointers on how to do so.

Your response makes me think I shouldn't have bothered.

> 
>  I would never bash you for your terrible web designining skills 

You just did, by saying that.  Don't be disingenuous.

> if you 
> asked me for help on a web design forum, even knowing you seem to rely 
> on them for professional means.

I'm primarily a developer, not a designer.  If I asked you for design 
help, I would expect you to tell me everything you didn't like about my 
designs, and what you would do instead -- in other words, I would expect 
you to do exactly what I did.

> 
>  You did give me some advice on healthy Ruby coding, but I'll show you 
> how to teach the same stuff with a better attitude (I've done it with 
> other areas, including programming, in which I actually have valuable 
> knowledge):
> 
>  - try to avoid methodName; use method_name instead
>  - there's no need to initialize x_1, x_2 or delta, since they receive 
> values before being read
>  - BigDecimal tends to be a better choice when doing calculations, 
> rather than Float. Plus, if you think about it, you didnt need Float() 
> for the above statements ;)
>  - dont return multiple values from a method. Its better to do it the 
> old way (using arrays or hashes) [just fyi, I had read otherwhise in 
> more than one place]
>  - avoid using capitalized names, unless youre defining constants

This is exactly what I said.


[...]
>  It's not like you ran the code anyways. I thought the error was 
> obvious: the radices found are incorrect (they're not radices to the 
> function). 

Tip for the future: if you post here (or in any similar forum) and just 
say "it doesn't work", people are not going to be particularly willing 
to help you.  If you get an error, always describe it.

> Were you to run it, I bet it'd be a lot easier to \b 4 times 
> on your keyboard to get rid of 4 bytes you find useless than to write 
> most of your post.

It's not about hitting backspace a few times.  You posted asking for 
help, and you said you were new to Ruby, so I thought I'd point you in 
the direction of more Ruby-like code.

> 
>  "if x_1" would work? Thanks a lot. It's not like it works on every 
> language, right? 

Nothing works in every language.  That's why we have documentation. :)

> And it's not like I'm trying to fixate certain aspects 
> of the language, and associate them with Ruby in my head anyways.

What?

> 
>  To the rest of the community, I'm sorry if my post sounds harsh. It's 
> just that I've never encourage attitude such as my kind helper's, and I 
> don't think you do either.
> 
>  Now, if anyone could tell me the reason why the results are wrong, I'd 
> really appreciate it. The healthy Ruby practices will come with 
> practice, but I do need to know what's going on here ;)

Best,
--
Marnen Laibow-Koser
http://www.marnen.org
[e-mail]
-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.